The art and business of film with Bob Strauss

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When You Have Three Masters, Ranking’s Kinda Beside the Point

News outlets love reductively calling them the Three Amigos. But at this point, I think, Guillermo Del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu can legitimately be labeled the Three Mexican Masters.
Each of the acknowledged buddies directed their best film to date in 2006: “Pan’s Labyrinth” (Del Toro), “Children of Men” (Cuaron) and “Babel” (Gonzalez Inarritu). “Pan’s” just nabbed the most prestigious critics prize of them all, the National Society of Film Critics’ best picture citation. The audaciously filmed dystopian thriller “Children of Men” is the season’s movie-of-choice for a wider range of hip critics and filmgoers. And “Babel” is the somewhat surprising, top nomination-getter among the more conventional awards-giving groups, such as the Golden Globes people and Screen Actors Guild, that have reported so far.
Hmm. I like to think of myself as a perceptive critic. And against all outside empirical evidence to the contrary, I actually believe I have my cool qualities. Plus, I usually revel in deriding of the lamer choices SAG and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association inevitably make (this year, nominations for “Bobby” are the big joke – now watch the academy follow suit and give that pointless liberal soft porn best picture).
But if my list of the year’s best films is an indicator, it looks like I’m with the lame-os when it comes to my Mexicans’ movies taste. I ranked “Babel” second best film of the year, “Children of Men” number four and “Pan’s Labyrinth” didn’t make the top 10 cut (just barely, I can honestly report).
But I don’t think that means that my tastes are growing as sclerotic as the rest of me is. The quality difference I’m able to perceive between these three exquisite films is non-existent. If anything, it was my own personal preference for films that lean toward realism that made the difference, and only in my head. “Babel” may have been a bit contrived, but it was all feasible and character-based; “Children” was a very realistic near-future projection that referenced much of what’s going on in society now; and “Pan’s” split the difference between beautifully realized fantasy and true political horror.
All told, the accomplishments of the Three Mexican Masters last year just point out the fundamental idiocy of ranking works of art. I’m just thankful that three such great films are out there to see, and anyone who loves what movies can do should be, too.

I feel like a fog, not that it matters. I’ve pretty much been doing nothing , but eh. Today was a loss. I haven’t gotten much done for a while.

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More or less nothing seems important. I’ve just been letting everything happen without me recently. I can’t be bothered with anything recently, but such is life. My life’s been generally bland today. Not much on my mind these days, but eh.